Dear Friends and Virginians:
It was 161 years ago that the Union and Confederate armies clashed at the battle of Second Manassas. Since that time, the battlefield — the site of two major Civil War engagements – has remained uncluttered and undeveloped, a living monument to American history.
Today the national battlefield site and adjacent state park, the rural crescent of Prince William County, are threatened by a new foe: the Digital Gateway, which is a massive expansion of data centers along Pageland Avenue, within yards of Brawner Farm where Stonewall Jackson’s troops faced off in June 1862 against the famed “Black Hat” brigade.
On Tuesday, December 12, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors will vote on this project, which requires a rezoning. The County staff and Planning Commission have recommended denial based upon the flaws in the developer’s application, including their failure to specify the location of electric lines or elevation heights, as well as their undetermined enviromental effects.
Yet the County Board may allow the development anyway because … well, the developers have promised a lot of money. Will this be the end of an iconic Virginia landscape?
Not so fast. In a strange twist right out of a John Grisham novel, the County Board seems to have shot itself in the foot, literally.
Virginia law, Section 15.2-2204, requires localities to advertise a public hearing by publishing two notices, which are at least six days apart. The County ordinance also requires two notices six days apart, with the second being at least five (5) days before the hearing.
However, Prince William published its notices on December 2, 5 and 9, which means that the public hearing on Tuesday has not been properly noticed. That means that any vote on December 12th will be invalid — and it’s too late to notice another public hearing in 2023 while this Board is in charge.
That means a new Board can be sworn in which can defeat the project and keep the area inviolate.
Could this be the Miracle of Manassas? Here is a link to this morning’s press conference.
Save Prince William County – press conference with attorney Chap Petersen – December 11, 2023 at 11 AM took place at the front entrance of the McCoart Administrative Building, PWC.
